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A better suggestion is to use the cheapest to deliver bond (CTD) of the deliverable basket rather than the On-the-run. The CTD is usually of shorter maturity than the on-the-run , so it will make a difference.

$\begingroup$Thanks. Except that for historical contracts, say the Mar 17, I don;t know how to get the Ctd bond. Are you suggesting I do a scan of all open bonds around that day to find the shortest maturity with "same" maturity year?$\endgroup$
– sumit_uk1Dec 14 '17 at 12:35

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$\begingroup$@SumitSengupta It depends on what you're trying to do and how precise you need things to be. Just to give you a sense for how big the error might be using OTRs, here's a chart plotting FV duration against 5-year OTR duration over time: i.imgur.com/AUNrDHp.png$\endgroup$
– HelinDec 14 '17 at 15:15

$\begingroup$Thanks a lot. from your chart , it seems the error is pretty constant. Wonder if I can use this as an adjustment.$\endgroup$
– sumit_uk1Dec 14 '17 at 16:34

$\begingroup$@SumitSengupta It really is just not a great idea. Please also account for the fact that FV has a relatively narrow range of securities eligible for delivery. The errors will be much larger and more time varying for contracts such as TY and US.$\endgroup$
– HelinDec 14 '17 at 20:18

$\begingroup$Thanks Helin. Any alternates you can suggest how best to proxy historical Bond futures duration? I tried every source (including exchange) , but couldn't get hold of historical deliverable basket. Your help is greatly appreciated$\endgroup$
– sumit_uk1Dec 17 '17 at 20:05